Blue Tree Manicure

Today is friday and I don’t have to work <woohoo> so I wanted to play with my new MoYou stamping plate and have some fun !  Plus, I’m going to see the sexy Chris Hemsworth in the new Thor:The Dark World movie soon so I’m in a good mood.  I think a bright bold happy mani is in order!

I’m wearing three coats of Phoebe which is a cool smooth ‘velvet matte’ polish by Zoya.  It has some shimmer in there, but when it’s matte you don’t notice.  I stamped a tree image over top in grey, Zoya Dove.  Then I stamped the tree on top again using a dark blue creme called Jive by Oh My Golly.  I like how the grey stamp underneath gives a neat shadow effect.

Lookit my new MoYou plate that I used for this manicure.  When I ordered it pre-sale (it took a week or two before it shipped) it was called MOTHER NATURE 03 Plate, and that’s how it’s listed online.  But take a look at my plate- it says LANDSCAPE 03 on it.  Hmmmmm….

Weird mistake they made, but I am liking all the cute nature stuff in this plate !

After I stamped the grey and blue tree design then I topcoated it with seche vite.  See how you can see alot of shimmer in my blue base color?  The shimmer was not noticeable when Phoebe was matte, but once I topcoated you can really see tons of shimmer in there!  I can’t decide if I like Zoya Phoebe better matte or shiny….. I took some photos of it matte which I can post later if anyone’s interested.  My camera was like WHOA at how blue it was!

Well, I’m off to go see Thor.  Have a nice weekend everyone! Talk soon!

Movember Nails for #naillinkup

It’s Movember, the month dedicated to growing your moustache for prostate & testicular cancer awareness!  I’m a supporter of movember, are you?  And I think moustaches are sexy!  If you like your men with facial hair then check out this gallery of ‘stached men who support the cause: MO PHOTOS. 

My nails even got in the spirit this month- let’s see my Movember nail design for the N.A.I.L. Linkup!

I free-handed my 2 moustaches and then stamped my other nails.  I didn’t paint a moustache on each of my fingers because that would be pushing my luck!  I was happy to get two nice looking ‘staches on my left and 2 on my right…. so that’s good enough for me!  Quit while you’re ahead.  🙂

Here’s what I’m wearing-

♥ Sally Hansen Maximum Growth as my basecoat – one coat

♥ Brijits Digits Annie Laurie silver polish – three coats

♥ Zoya Ginessa – sponged onto my tips for a slight gradient effect

♥ China Glaze Liquid Leather – black polish used for moustaches and stamping

♥ Konad M79 plate for my dotted stamp design – on pinky and pointer fingers

♥ Cheeky CH55 plate for my necktie stamped design – on my thumb

♥ Seche Vite topcoat

Do you ever finish some nail art and feel this serious vibe that if you topcoat it you will ruin it and make the design bleed?  I was totally feeling that vibe with this mani… so I slathered on the seche vite very heavily so that the brush wouldn’t drag across my designs.  In doing this I wound up applying way too much topcoat.  Oh well!  At least there was no bleeding!  🙂

I can’t wait to see the other moustaches for the November Nail Art Ideas Linkup!  Please join in- here are the details!

Movember Moustaches :

Oh My Golly Nail Polish!

This is new-to-me-brand called Oh My Golly!   Don’t you just love trying new brands??  The swatches I’m sharing are from Oh My Golly’s new Crystal Sand collection.  Right off the bat I’ll tell ya- I’m loving these OMGs!  Let’s check them out…..

First we’ll look at Oh My Golly’s Hematite which is the darker of the two.  Hematite is a black textured polish with what I’d call a ‘sandpaper’ finish. This black polish has glitter in it that shifts between silver and gold.  I think I captured the effect in my pics- if you look close you can see how some nails are a bit silver while others have a hint of gold in them.  Hematite has a nice fluid formula and was easy to apply.  One coat looked pretty sheer so I was afraid it would need several coats.  But surprisingly, two coats was all I needed for perfect coverage.  Hematite dried fast!  I applied my coats in between housework and they didn’t get messed up or smudged.

I love Hematite’s glitzy glam look.  It totally reminds me of new years eve and would be perfect for a holiday party!  I bet if you dressed up and wore this on your nails you’d feel like a million bucks!

Emerald is just as the name suggests- a beautiful emerald green.  I will be so happy to wear this color come wintertime!  The glitter in this one is green and silver. It really lights up and reminds me of holiday decorations.   The formula is great on this one too- it dried fast and two coats was sufficient, but I ended up using three coats for these pics.  I could really see myself wanting to wear Emerald on Christmas day.  It feels so festive to me!

Removal on these was as I expected.  It was harder to remove than a cream polish, but easier than a glitter bomb.  It seemed to wear well without chipping, and I’m so happy to add these OMGs to my collection.

Oh My Golly Crystal Sand polishes are proudly made in the Philippines.  Now I’m supposed to tell you where you can find them…and unless you live in the Pacific, I have no idea.  If any of you know where to buy OMGs, please share in the comments section. The only suggestion I have is that you could try to make friends with someone from the Philippines!  🙂  I actually received my OMG polishes from The Nailinator in a swap.  Rachael- I am thrilled with all my goodies, thank you dear!

» Two days ago Typhoon Haiyan ripped through the Philippines and Rachael I’m so thankful that you and your family are safe.  I’ve seen on the news that the destruction is unparalleled my heart goes out to everyone in the Pacific.  I am counting my blessings right now and I hope that I can help in what ever way possible.  I’d like to share an article HERE by Huff Post that lists how you can help too by donating to World Food Program, American Red Cross, The Philippine Red Cross, or any of these charities that will put your money to good use for disaster relief efforts.

Copycat: Kelly Osbourne’s pointy black heart nails!

I’m so happy to show you my latest CELEBRITY COPYCAT manicure!  From the instant I transitioned my nails from squoval to pointy I just knew that I had to try out this design!  Ready to see my rendition of Kelly Osbourne’s black heart nails from the 2013 SAG Awards??

The photo I used of Kelly is not my property – it can be found in this article on reveal.co.uk

My mani isn’t a complete match, since her nails are way pointier.  But I am loving this fierce look!  I don’t dare file mine as pointy as hers- I really think they’d break! 

I timed how long this manicure took me from start to finish and it was 27 minutes.  And it didn’t cost me anything since I did it myself.  I wonder how much time and money Kelly spent on these nails?!  teeheehee 😉

Here’s the steps to create this look:

1) Base coat-  I used one coat of Sally Hansen Maximum Growth.

2) Sheer neutral base color-  I applied one coat of Seche Vite Chic which is a very sheer pinky peach color meant to be used as a base for french manicures.

3) Black tips-  I used China Glaze Liquid Leather and skinny nail art brush to make the heart shape outline.  Then I used the China Glaze bottle brush to fill in the rest of the heart with more black polish.  However, when I went to do my second hand I skipped the nail art brush part and simply free-handed the hearts using the bottle brush.  This was just as effective, but way quicker!!!

4) Silver accents- I can’t tell if Kelly was wearing silver glitter on her tips, or what…since they looked black but also kinda silver too.  So I decided to add some pewter-toned polish on top of the black to imitate her look.  I used a nail art brush dipped in Sally Hansen Gunmetal to go over top of the black.  I brushed it on in a very ‘quick and dirty’ kind of way since I just wanted to add a bit of silver on top of the black.

5) Top coat- I applied one coat of Seche Vite topcoat to finish off my manicure.

And that’s it!  What do you think?  Any recommendations for other celebrity copycats that I should attempt??? I want to try more!

Sizes of nail polish bottles?

One night I started thinking about sizing of nail polish bottles and how some are so dang small.  I think those companies are pretty slick how they make their bottles small, but their prices don’t reflect the fact that they are giving you less product.  I haven’t found that small bottles of nail polish are any cheaper, have you?  I hafta admit though, I normally I don’t pay much attention to size.  If I see a polish I like, then I buy it.  So I guess their evil plan is working!  But maybe I’ll start paying attention more?  What do you think of that, Hard Candy?

I started sifting through my polish, making different collections of polishes based on like-sizes. I kinda got lost in the process and was constantly moving bottles from pile to pile until I found their rightful spots.  I must’ve looked like a crazed polish packrat!  This goes here, no this goes here, buahahahahaaaaaa!!  (I’m only talking about full-size bottles here and I’m excluding minis from the conversation)  It seemed that one pile quickly became the biggest.  The 15ml bottles.  I believe that this is the most common size for nail polish and lacquers.  Shown below are some of my 15mls (from R to L)— OPI, Sephora, Nicole by OPI, Sinful Colors, Zoya, Fresh Paint, Color Club, Pure Ice and KleanColor.  I’m sure I had more 15ml brands in my stash, but I didn’t actually dig everything out that night.

If 15 ml is the average size, then what’s the biggest?  That was a landslide.  Orly is the biggest at 18ml.  Go Orly!  Yet another reason for me to love you!

So what’s the smallest?  In my stash Hard Candy was the smallest at 7.8 ml.  7.8 ???  That’s almost half the size of an average-sized bottle!  The runner-up for smallest was Essence Colour & Go at 8ml.  Essence is very inexpensive in the USA so I’ll excuse them, but I feel like Hard Candy really needs to step up their game.  It’s not like they are marketed as mini bottles, so why so skimpy with your polish?  I am not posting pics because I will not reward them for their stingy practices.  LOL

We’ve talked about the bigs and littles, but one company just can’t decide on their size.  Sally Hansen!  They’re sizing is all over the map.  Ok, it’s not really a big deal, but it is kind of interesting.  Take a look at this pic- these SH  bottles run the gamut from a tiny 8.8 ml all the way up to 14.7 ml.  But in fact, a lot the bottles appear to be similar in size.  Especially the 8.8 on the end-  I would never guess that it contains so much less polish than the others.  Sneaky, sneaky Sally!

So now that I’ve got you thinking about sizing- what do you think?  Does the size of the bottle influence your purchase at all?  I just saw some drama over on the Llarowe fb page about her new bottle sizes, so I guess some people are rather passionate about the topic!

Crystal nails with scales

I recently won a giveaway over at Nails done by a Blimbo !  Isn’t that one of the most exciting things about reading blogs-  opening your email to find that you won a giveaway?  It’s like… best day ever, cha cha cha! !

One of the polishes I graciously received from D. was this stunning blue foil called Crystal by Zoya.  LOVE IT!  Then I decided to stamp on top of it and this mani got even better!  These scales are too cool!  I used Mash-39 plate and Illamasqua Vice for my stamping.  Vice is a rubber-finish lacquer so it really has a neat appearance that almost pops up off of the blue.  I loved this manicure so much that I made a little collage for you….

Since my base color is so gorgeous I have to show you some swatches of that too!  Crystal is from a winter collection a few years back and I’m surprised that I’ve never seen it before!  It’s a shiny blue foil that has tiny flecks of gold glitter (I’ve seen it described as ‘irregular shaped glitter’ online).  Here’s a swatch of three coats plus topcoat.  I could’ve gotten away with two coats, but I couldn’t tell if parts of it were transparent or not in direct light, so I went with three coats….

Isn’t it lush?  Thank you D. for picking out this Zoya for me!  Crystal is a perfect combo of icy blue and warm gold.   It’s just my style and I can’t wait to wear it this winter!

Crystal is part of the 2010 Winter Flame Collection which I’ve also seen called the Fire & Ice Collection.  Do you own any of these and are they all as awesome as Crystal?  Here’s the collection on the Zoya website if you want to check them out.

Solar Eclipse Nails for #NAILLINKUP

Did you see the solar eclipse this morning?  I missed it!  We had daylight savings in the U.S. this morning too, which gave me an excuse to sleep in wayyy later than normal.  🙂

After deciding to make SOLAR ECLIPSE one of our themes for the November NAIL Linkup– this idea came to me rather quickly!  It’s an easy design too, which is always nice when you’re trying to squeeze nail challenges into your busy life schedule.

Each nail shows the different phases of the sun during an eclipse!  I did imagine the design different in my head though.  I’m surprised I was only able to fit 3 suns on each nail.  I imagined it with at least four suns, but oh well.  I need to face the fact that I don’t have long nails anymore!  lol

This manicure was simple simple simple!   I started with 2 coats of Brigits Digits called Witching Hour, a nice dark vampy holographic maroon color.  I just tried it out recently, but I’ve really been itching to wear it again since 1-Fall is great for deep mysterious colors like this and 2- now that my nails are shaped different I’m finding that I love to play with darker colors!  After my Witching Hour was in place I did 3 orange dots on each nail using AVON Creamsicle.  You may have noticed that I use that orange all the time, but for reals–AVON cream polishes are perfect for nail art!  To make the orange dots look like eclipses I just overlapped another dot over top using Witching Hour to partially cover the suns.  So basically, each nail has five dots on it.  How easy is that?

I enjoyed this look for a day, then I wanted to try mattifying it.  Matte topcoat makes holos look cool!  It brings out all the little flecks hidden in there!

Brijits Digits Witching Hour with MASH Matte Topcoat

I hope to see some fun SOLAR ECLIPSE manis as part of the Nail Art Ideas Linkup.  There’s so much room for interpretation with this one.  You could do suns, moons, galaxies, skies… whatever strikes your fancy!  Here are the other SOLAR ECLIPSE manis in the collection:

Solar Eclipse :